#41. The World Series, Dolemite, and Box Office Mojo
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Recorded the morning after the Nationals won Game 7, this one is baseball first and movies a distant third — the hosts joke that the film portion will run about five minutes. When they finally get to Dolemite Is My Name, Sonny is the champion: he calls Eddie Murphy's Rudy Ray Moore biopic "a blaxploitation version of The Disaster Artist," praises it as a slight but hugely likable feel-good underdog story, and singles out the theater scene where the characters watch a lesser Jack Lemmon–Walter Matthau picture (The Front Page) while a white audience chuckles politely. JVL admires that Murphy made a prestige movie "without turning into Tom Hanks," notes the Boogie Nights vibe, and loves the Wesley Snipes gag where a strutting tough-guy actor instantly caves when offered the director's chair and then turns frou-frou with a French accent. Vic gives it a B-plus, complaining the middle drags at nearly two hours, though he approvingly runs it through his quadrants — plot, action and "the bonus" of nudity — and JVL insists a B-plus is really a C. The long front half belongs to JVL's World Series confession: he bought a half-season ticket package with his friend Sarah, took Flash to three home games, watched the Nats score three total runs, and has zero buyer's remorse, while offering to sell his 2020 vote to any candidate who bans post-7:05 start times. Sonny needles him throughout, Vic celebrates fans burning Bryce Harper jerseys outside the stadium, and JVL rages at the kid who stared at his phone all game and at fans leaving in the ninth. They also stage a full-throated mourning for the IMDb Pro redesign of Box Office Mojo — Sonny would pay for the old version, maybe $1,500 for life — plus Halloween candy debates, Popeyes as potluck chili substitute, and Vic's top-five Eddie Murphy list crowning Trading Places.
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- In this latest episode, sponsored by DoorDash and ExpressVPN, we discuss Eddie Murphy's Dolemite Is My Name . ...
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00As the Nationals are a strike away from franchise history and some World Series history, the kick in, here it comes.
Vic00:00:07Swing and a miss! Swing and a miss! Swing and a miss!
Guest00:00:11And a World Series Game 7 winning Curly W is in the books!
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon, sponsored by ExpressVPN and DoorDash. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just remember, the Sub-Beacon is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Look at our podcasts and search for Sub-Beacon, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Speaking of which, we got the best review yet. Five stars, titled, Love Me Some Vivian. Vic, quote, quote. Is it by that British teenage girl? Quote, I feel like Vic would make a great stuffed animal. I'd buy one. I'm sure others would, too. The Vic doll. I'm thinking, you know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking a wind-up. A wind-up, right? And it'd be like, I like hugs. Squeeze, squeeze harder. How about, uh-oh. Think you like that? Uh-oh. Anyway. Sonny, you have nothing to add, no? I think a Vic doll would be great.
JVL00:01:32I can think of many uses. Would the Vic doll come with a life-size head? Yeah, it'd be huge. Realistic head?
Vic00:01:41Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Sonny00:01:42I mean, it would be too big for any child's bed.
Vic00:01:45One of those giant pillows, like a stuffy. Like in my daughter's room, it's like a stuffed cupcake pillow. Except it'd be my head.
Sonny00:01:55Or like the pillow that James Franco carries around in that 30 Rock episode. Sure.
Vic00:01:59Whatever works. So anyway, thank you. And that was from listener Metsocks45. Sounds like a baseball fan. Speaking of baseball, JVL, Sonny, how about that World Series?
JVL00:02:12God, I can't do this anymore.
Vic00:02:14You've seen it. You've been there. Had you ever been to a World Series before?
JVL00:02:18No. No, never been to a World Series game before. Have you guys been to World Series games?
Vic00:02:22No. Never. And this was the most unusual World Series, obviously, because the Astros, the Astros fans can also say the same thing as the Nats fans, which is every game they went to, they lost.
JVL00:02:35Yeah, no, this is the first time in any of the major sports that have a seven-game series championship that the road team won all seven games. Never happened before. It's bizarre. It's crazy. But I, so I, I would like to tell about,
Sonny00:02:52talk about politics for one moment. If you had tried to make a prop bet on that, what do you think the odds you could have gotten? 10,001? Something like that, yeah. If you were like, I'm going to bet 10,000 to one that the road team wins every...
Vic00:03:07That's a great bet.
Sonny00:03:08Every, I mean, you would lose every time. Except for the one time it pays off.
Vic00:03:12That's it, you're done.
JVL00:03:13It's like betting the all number one seeds making it to the final four. Right. It never happens except for the time it happens. So just politics for five seconds. I would like to offer my vote for sale in the 2020 election. I will vote for whatever candidate announces that they will buy... By executive order, decree that no World Series game may start after 7.05 Eastern time. Because the 8 o'clock start on a World Series game has wrecked my life. I am barely functional. And when we went to the games, we weren't getting home until 2.30, 3 o'clock in the morning. Because, man, that's rough. And the World Series games themselves take much like 45 minutes longer than a normal baseball game. And so even watching it from the comfort of your heart, when you're home, you're up until midnight, 12.15. Yeah, that's right. I can't do that.
Vic00:04:04I couldn't look.
JVL00:04:07I couldn't stay up that late when I was in college, even. But as an old person with small children in the house, it's just destroyed me. We're taping this. It is currently 9.11. And I've already had eight shots of espresso. I'm on my second Diet Coke. And I am barely awake.
Vic00:04:27I have friends who might... My friends up in Boston, Steve Ustera, Steve Schmidt, and they said, get used to it. This is what it's going to be like for the next week or so with a team in the World Series. It's just very little sleep. You're exhausted. It's all you're doing. And power through it. You've got to power through it.
JVL00:04:45Did you guys watch?
Sonny00:04:46Of course. Sonny, you did not watch. A single at that, did you? No, no. I watched a little bit. So I was in Dallas last week when the World Series started. And it was on in the background when I would go out to restaurants or something like that. Or bars or whatever. I'd be like, oh, the Nationals seem to be winning. Because it was the first two games. I was like, wow, they're going to sweep the Astros. That's crazy, obviously.
Vic00:05:08But also it's kind of weird because you're in Dallas. It's all Rangers territory. I don't know how they're rooting against the Astros.
JVL00:05:15I bet they don't like each other. Those cities do not like each other. It's not like a Texas Strong thing.
Vic00:05:20No, I know people from Houston and Dallas who hate, literally, they hate the other city or the people from it.
JVL00:05:28It's like Pittsburgh, Philly. People in Philly barely know that Pittsburgh exists. There is no rivalry at all. I believe the Pittsburgh-Philly rivalry is like the Princeton-Harvard rivalry. You know, like Harvard's like, I'm sorry, you guys are what? Wow. So you, Sonny, you were not into it. No, this isn't a, I'm sorry, this is not a class thing. Pittsburgh is a great city. It is that Pittsburgh might as well be the Midwest. Right. Pittsburgh is a Midwestern city. Philly is all about Philly. And Philly is basically, like, a New England city.
Vic00:06:01Oh, and Philly looks at New York.
JVL00:06:03Yeah, yeah. Well, and also just a part of the country. Geographically, Philadelphia is a Northeastern city. That's right. It's a weird. And Pittsburgh is a Midwestern city. People say pop instead of coke in Pittsburgh. Anyway, Sonny. Sonny, so you were not. Do they say coke in Philly? Yeah.
Sonny00:06:16Okay.
JVL00:06:17I mean, what do you think we snort? So what, you didn't, have you ever been a baseball guy? For some reason, I thought you were a baseball guy.
Vic00:06:25Yeah, I'm an Orioles fan. I thought you were, yeah, that's right. You're an Orioles fan.
Sonny00:06:28I'm a, I'm a, I'm a fan of the, the actual home team for the Washington, D.C. area. So the, the, when the Nationals do well, I'm, I'm happy. I'm like, I, I don't have this, like, I don't, I don't feel any sort of rivalry or anything with the Nationals. I'm happy for Nationals fans, but that's not my team, so. I'm not a Nationals team, I'm not a Nationals fan either. I'm a fan of baseball. I know. And this is why I think it's so weird that you would, you would mortgage your, you'd sell your soul to, and your, and your sleep. Tuition. And your sleep to go to these games. I don't understand. I don't understand it. I just don't, I don't get it. Because it's, because you can't go to a World Series game unless, unless it's in your city.
JVL00:07:06Right? You cannot easily go to a World Series game unless it is local. And the chance to go to a World Series game is tremendous. And it doesn't matter if you are in love with the team or not. Flash and I have a sort of special bond with two of the players on the team, Juan Soto and Victor Robles, who we watched in their minor league years, just like last year and the year before. And it was, I mean, you know, like, Flash. Flash would, like, talk with Victor before games and stuff. And now he's, like, out in the field and the two guys, because they play left and center, warm each other up in between innings when they're out in the field. And it's kind of, you know, very sweet to watch them. Also, this team's infinitely more likable minus Bryce Harper.
Vic00:07:46Yeah, I, you know, I was. This is a real thing.
Sonny00:07:48Like, this is, you know, they are. And it's not an accident that they started winning once they got lost. So is this the new Ewing theory? Remember the, remember the old Ewing theory that Bill Simmons had? It was like, you. Because he leaves, he leaves Georgetown and Georgetown wins the title, right? Wasn't that, wasn't that what happened?
Vic00:08:05No, he won, he won in 82 with. Oh, did he? I can't remember.
Sonny00:08:08It was, but it's like.
Vic00:08:09No, no, no, no, no. You're absolutely right. They got to 82. They lost, I think, to Houston. And then they won in 84.
Sonny00:08:15Right, right. So it was like the next, the next year or the year after that. And then. And then, and, you know, he never won with, with the Knicks. And then they got better after he left or something. I don't know. Corrections.
JVL00:08:24But what did, did Simmons think it was because, I'm sorry, what time it is? Was, did Simmons think it was because Ewing was such a D-bag that everybody else on the
Sonny00:08:33team hated him? I don't think.
JVL00:08:35And he made the clubhouse unhappy?
Sonny00:08:37I don't, I, but I mean, I think that that is, I don't, I don't know that that is specifically. Or just that there was a problem with running the offense. That is part of it. Here's, here's a better question. Is Dusty Baker the new Ewing theory?
JVL00:08:50Don't go there. No. Don't go there.
Sonny00:08:51I don't think there's, I don't blame. Remember when everybody wanted to fire Davey Martinez at the beginning, beginning of this year? Yeah, sure. But. Remember, remember, remember, remember every time that, you know, that, that he got to the playoffs and then he crapped the bed? Well, but he, but he had Bryce Harper on the team. That's true. That's right.
JVL00:09:12You were to both of them.
Vic00:09:13I saw our problems outside of the Nats stadium last night. There were fans who burned the Bryce Harper jersey.
JVL00:09:21They burned it. Melted it. Yeah. No.
Vic00:09:23And they were like, it was almost that exorcistic, you know, I mean, they wanted that. They, he's done. He's, and he's dead to them. He's dead. That guy.
JVL00:09:29He is now a man without a country because he's up in Philly and they hate him in Philly. And now having one without him, everybody in Washington, all the, like the good people. Oh man, it was really tough. Right. Oh my God. That guy is now. God, we hate it. Yeah. It's great.
Vic00:09:46Yeah. It's great. I mean, I was, I got it. I got a text from a friend who was like, I wonder what Bryce Harper is doing right now. And I said, he's probably in that awful strip club outside Philly that I had to go to, to my friend's bachelor party. Cheerleaders. Yeah.
JVL00:09:58Delilah's. I think it was called pulsations.
Vic00:09:59Yeah. Maybe it was called. They're all right next to each other. Temptations like in a factory warehouse district.
Sonny00:10:04He's probably sleeping on his, you know, mattress stuffed with hundred dollar bills.
JVL00:10:07Standing in front of the mirror, fixing his hair.
Sonny00:10:09Right. That's what, that's what Bryce does. American psycho style.
JVL00:10:15So did you guys have world series thoughts?
Vic00:10:18No, no, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just very happy for the team. I find all these players to be very likable. I find them all to be, with the exception of, I was not a fan of the. Relief pitcher, Rodney. Well, nobody likes Fernando Rodney.
Sonny00:10:33Cause he's, he's like 45 years old and he just gives up runs. It's like, oh, he does.
Vic00:10:39And Gara is the other pitcher who I think, oh man, I'm glad we got through them. And then we, we barely survived. But.
Sonny00:10:46So did Garrett, did, did the Nats beat Garrett Cole twice? No, once.
JVL00:10:50Oh, once. And then he won, he won the fifth game that Scherzer bailed on. He won game five. He was, we were at that game. It was. So this is something I had. Not realized is that when you are in live in a stadium, even from far away, you can tell the difference between 98 miles an hour and 94 miles an hour. Huh? Like it, it just looks fast. How far away were you? Where were your seats? We were, uh, dead center, maybe a little bit to the, a little bit to the right of center field, um, on the first level. Uh, it, man, Cole was. Fantastic. What a, what a performance. It was Verlander who, uh, they beat, they beat Verlander. So they beat Verlander and Cole in games one and two. And, uh, I, I kind of mystified that Cole didn't get put in the game last night. Uh, they went after Granky. They went to Asuna. They went to Harris, then Asuna instead of going to Cole, which was interesting because Cole's out there warming up, ready to go. Uh, it was great. You know, I think the. Houston is also a likable team.
Sonny00:12:01Yeah.
Vic00:12:01Right. Everyone seems to like Houston. Yeah.
JVL00:12:03Yeah.
Vic00:12:03My friend George is down there and, uh, he had, uh, box seats for a bank of America because that's where he works. And, uh, but he had a hundred two fever.
Sonny00:12:12Oh, did not go to the game. JVL. Can we, can we talk about how you got the tickets?
Vic00:12:18Sure. I like how you give a pause in case you want to edit this out.
Sonny00:12:21No, I just, just in case, uh, because I, my understanding is you, you actually bought season tickets. Half season tickets. To the, you split a season ticket. A half season ticket package.
JVL00:12:31I, I bought a half season ticket package. Oh, you bought a half season ticket package.
Vic00:12:34So that's an option or do you have, or is that you buy the whole season and you split
JVL00:12:37it with a friend? No. So actually my, my friend Sarah and I each bought half season tickets next to each other. So we have four seats in a row and two and two. For all the same games. We think so. We don't know. We won't know until we get the, the thing. Okay. In, you know, March or whenever they send it out.
Sonny00:12:55So you bought, you bought, you bought two tickets to 40 Nats games. Yes. So you could watch three losses in the world series.
JVL00:13:04So that I could watch the Nationals score three runs in three games.
Sonny00:13:10That's a, you know, that's good, right? But you know what? That's good, isn't it?
JVL00:13:15Is, you have to do. Is that good? Is that good? Is that good? It was great. It was absolutely great. And also this is the other thing. One of the reasons I was convinced that this would all be worth it was because Flash and I are not actually Nationals. We're Nats fans. Those losses didn't bother us at all, right? We were just there to see the world series and we got to see the world series and we had all of the upside of like, holy crap, we're in a world series game, but make it but with none of the downside of like, oh, our team, but our hearts are ripped out, but
Vic00:13:45I'm also sorry, but I'm surprised that because you and Flash, you know, actually know some of the players that that hasn't swayed him to be more of a Nats fan.
JVL00:13:56No, do you know what sways him winning the winning? Tonight, closing in, he was like, so he's not a Cubs fan anymore. He's like, no, no, I, you know, I love the Cubs, but you're allowed to have a, you're allowed to have a home team doing like, you know, I, I think, I think that I'm going to buy the Nats championship jersey when they put it out for the first time because they always do a first home stand championship version of a jersey. It's an alt and and I was like, dude, and he's like, you know, I'm not that much of a front runner. I said, let's let's just tick off the authentic MLB fitted cap. Which are currently sitting in our, in our garage. We have the Cubs, the Cleveland Indians, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Oh yeah. The Dodgers, the Boston Red Sox and the Washington Nationals. What do all five of these teams have in common? All five of them have participated in the world series over the course of the last five years.
Sonny00:14:49I have to say, I have, I have to say, I, this is the one thing I judge you about JVL. This is, this is a failure in parenting. You, you have to, you have to insist. You have to instill, you know, moral character in your children by making them cheer for losers. This is why I'm still an Orioles fan. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to raise, I'm going to raise the next generation of Orioles fans.
Vic00:15:09It makes the winning that much more meaningful when you have to suffer. That's why I still follow the Redskins since, since they won when I was a freshman at Georgetown and it was that second semester. I said, oh my gosh.
Sonny00:15:21Well, so you started as a frontrunner.
Vic00:15:22I started, yeah, a bandwagon.
Sonny00:15:23And then you, and then you stayed on the bandwagon.
JVL00:15:26That Norv Turner is great. Hold on. You were a Giants fan growing up.
Vic00:15:29I was, I was, I was geographically, that would be it more than, more than Philly. Uh, but I was not really into football. Oh, so, you know, then I was like, wow, yeah, I adopted. And then of course I really got into football when, uh, Fred Barnes gave me his, uh, then Redskins. You and I went there together. Yes. And, uh, I remember watching.
JVL00:15:47The seats were amazing.
Vic00:15:48They were amazing. They were end zone seats. Like 12 rows up in the end zone. But I remember, yeah, that's right. And I remember actually, uh, seeing Jerry Rice because there was a Niners game that I also had seen there. One, I went with my other friend, uh, Keith this one time and we had an extra ticket. So we scalped ticket and the money we got for that ticket was just enough for the food and drink. Yeah. You probably got like 200 bucks for that. And it was like, it's like fried chicken, maybe a hot dog and a couple of beers. That's it. There's your 200.
Sonny00:16:17The only time I, so I've been, I've been to, uh, FedEx field twice now. The first was for a Packers game where I like bought the tickets and was in like the upper, like the last row of FedEx. FedEx field.
JVL00:16:30Which doesn't exist anymore.
Sonny00:16:31Yeah. Which like is carved over now. It's embarrassment. Um, uh, and that was, that was like a bad experience. Just everything about it was bad experience. But the other time I went was, uh, like a friend had some club seats. It was against like the Cardinals or something. So the stadium was half, half full. Nobody really cared. Um, and when we were sitting in the, we were sitting in, we were sitting in the club section and watching the game and all of a sudden, uh, one of the beer guys comes around and a guy who was like two rows in front of us was like beers for the section and he just like pulls out an enormous, uh, beer. Enormous wad of cash and starts like peeling off a hundred dollar bills. And like the, the guy, the, the beer guy's like, I can't really do that. Cause you know, I don't know the age. He's like, give everyone a beer. And so like, it just like started handing them down the aisle to people. It was, it was, uh, but it was like, that was the single most extravagant expenditure I've ever seen anyone, anyone ever make. It was, it was, uh, it was an insane thing. I can top that generous.
JVL00:17:25I can top that. Because I got an email yesterday at 20. 1235 from our buddy, Dan and Dan sent me a picture of him on an airplane with his son decked out in nationals gear. And he said, I picked him up from school at 11 o'clock. Total surprise. We're on a plane to Houston.
Sonny00:17:51Oh man. Wow.
JVL00:17:52And so he, I believe went and at like 1145 on gas game six was winding down. But plane tickets to Houston got his kid and I haven't talked to him since I haven't gotten pictures from the game worth it then. But how great is that? He and his kid will remember that day. He died. Father of the year voting is closed.
Vic00:18:13Yes. No, no, absolutely.
JVL00:18:14Dan is the big winner.
Vic00:18:16It was, it's funny because, you know, I mean, it was getting late and, you know, and my daughter went to bed, but my son stayed up till he stayed up, right? He stayed up, but it was funny cause it's like, you know, bottom of the eighth and Kate was like, okay, now it's. It's probably time to go to sleep right before, right before the top of the, really, really right now. Well, you know, he's got to get up early tomorrow. I'm like, uh, okay. So anyway, I'm happy about that. Cause I said, you know, I don't, who knows when you will see this again. I mean, maybe. So this is, I mean, it was really quite something.
JVL00:18:46They barely made it through the wild card game against the breweries. These, these, these fans in this city are such garbage. I know you were going, we were at the, uh, two, two notes from the game. There were kids. There was a, a group of people in front of us for game three, uh, two adults and a 14 year old and the 14 year old spent literally every second of the game staring down at his phone, playing games, like a variety of different games, tickets to go. He's there at the world series and never looked up even once in game five. I don't think that, I don't think that is a DC specific, right? I don't think that is. That is a DC.
Sonny00:19:29That is a generational, that is a garbage millennial, you know, or whatever, whatever post-millennial Z, Gen Z thing is.
JVL00:19:37The, uh, the other thing was at the top of the ninth inning in game five, where it was clear the Nationals were going to lose. Right.
Vic00:19:43It was. People started leaving the stadium.
JVL00:19:46Yeah. And I just, I thought to myself, half the stadiums in the major leagues have never gotten and never will get a world series game. That's right. Right. If you're in San Diego, your beautiful Petco park. It has never had a world series game in it and never will. This is precious. Right. You, you may never get another one of these.
Vic00:20:06Because I was going to say in Houston. Stay for the last 10 minutes. In Houston, of course, you know, when we were up, whatever the score was at blowout in game two. Right. Um, yeah. And they all left. A lot of people left early, obviously, but you know, they've been to this rodeo before.
JVL00:20:20They've been to this rodeo before. They had a very good chance that it was, they were going to be back. I, it just struck me that if, if you have gone 86 years with a world series drought in your town and you're there, and I guess if you want to leave in the seventh inning or the fifth inning, I'd be like, okay, well, you're saving yourself two hours. But for those last 10 minutes, it's like the people who leave church after communion.
Vic00:20:42Well, I mean, there's a park.
JVL00:20:44You stay there for the Lord.
Vic00:20:45There's a, there's a parking situation there, JVL.
JVL00:20:47Sometimes you just got to get out of that parking lot.
Vic00:20:49Number two, at my church and my church, of course, um, they, they, right before they give you the final blessing. I, I've complained about this before. In fact, I complained about it personally to Cardinal. Sarah, my buddy in Rome. And, and he goes, okay, with all the announcements before the announcements. And then they go, okay, now, are there, uh, anybody's birthdays this week? Hey, happy birthday. Um, do we have anniversaries? Hey, how many years? No, no. How many years? How many? Meanwhile, you know, everything is still up there at the altar. You're a Presbyterian. You would think how many, how many years? Oh, that's great. And newcomers, visitors, where are you from? Oh, hey, welcome. Yay.
JVL00:21:27That is horrific. Yeah.
Vic00:21:29And that was like newly instituted with the new pastor and everyone goes through it. And, and then after, okay, let's rise for the final blessing now.
JVL00:21:37Okay. You know what? Yeah. Isn't that bad? You might as well just leave. Sonny, do you stay after the Eucharist or do you, and wait for the final benediction? Or do you just get out right after you receive?
Vic00:21:47Well. Are you one of those bad Catholics?
Sonny00:21:49Uh, when I, uh, you know, on Easter and Christmas. And Rosh Hashanah.
Vic00:21:58And Rosh.
JVL00:21:59Rosh.
Vic00:21:59Uh, okay.
JVL00:22:01Uh, any other World Series thoughts?
Vic00:22:03Yeah.
JVL00:22:03No. Okay. Um. Worth every penny. That's my thought. Worth every penny. No, I mean. I have no buyer's remorse whatsoever. I have the opposite of buyers. Plus it's a great stadium. The op. No, it's a mediocre stadium. Oh, I see. Deeply mediocre stadium. Oh, it's mediocre.
Sonny00:22:17They've got restaurants. Bars. They've got food. They've got food. They've got beer. They watch baseball. What do you want? I don't ask you one. You know what I remember? Compared to like Camden Yards, it's a, it's a crap hole.
JVL00:22:29I mean, it's, but the area is a very nice area. Victorino, I have a question for you. Have you been to the national stadium? I've been there a couple of times. One of the food stands they have sells lobster rolls.
Vic00:22:38Yeah.
JVL00:22:39Would I get that lobster at a stadium? I got that at what was then Pac Bell. And what percentage of the thing in a lobster roll is actual lobster meat as opposed to like filler, that fake crab, fake lobster and the fake crab, which is all just like mollusks, right?
Vic00:22:55Well, I don't know. I mean, is it the, is it that lobster chuck, the, the, that red, that. That red hook lobster, then it's going to be all that Luke's, then it's going to be all lobster, right? Is it Luke's? I don't believe it's one of the big ones. I don't believe it's one of the big ones. And there's a Shake Shack too there. But of course that line is impossible. I'm sure.
JVL00:23:10Not when you're a half season ticket plan, you don't have to stand in the lines. Oh, really? This is like Harrison told me all about this. How does that work? Because you are allowed to use. They're like a fast pass. And the, when you use e-cash, which is only available to half season and full season plan holders, you have a separate line. When Harrison told me about this, I was like, what? And he goes, now it's worth it, right, Sonny? He goes, JVL, welcome to the real world.
Vic00:23:38Moving right along. I just, I just wanted to say that today, of course, is Halloween. Happy Halloween.
JVL00:23:47Happy Halloween. I'll take everything king size. Still the champion. Still the champion. You know what?
Vic00:23:53Did you see the commercial, the Halloween commercial where the kids are bargaining with the other kids? And they have the king size Hershey bar?
JVL00:24:01Yeah.
Vic00:24:01And they're giving all this little candy because.
Sonny00:24:04Because the king size. Because you want the king size. It's controversial. It's such a controversial. It's the champion. I don't know. It's the champion. It doesn't even matter what the candy is. It's disqualified.
Vic00:24:12It does not even matter what the candy is. The king size is king. That's why it's called king. You were thinking outside the box.
Sonny00:24:18I was thinking outside the box. Are you transitioning?
Vic00:24:20No, I'm not actually. I was going to say, speaking of outside the box, office. No, I didn't want to. I thought that's where you were going. I will tell you this. We'll come back to it later. Take five. Do you know take five? I don't know what that is.
Sonny00:24:34Have you seen it? That sounds like a trash candy bar.
Vic00:24:37It's pretty good. And it's a combination of like chocolate, caramel, peanuts, pretzel. So just everything. Everything. Five ingredients. That's why it's take five. It's all the trimmings.
Sonny00:24:48It's all the trimmings from the other candy bars. And they melt it down into a big pot. And they're like, have this garbage bar.
Vic00:24:54It's fancy looking. It's almost like not real drink. The real drink. No, there used to be.
Sonny00:24:59It's like the stuff at the bottom of the trash bag. You know at the bar. The liquid at the bottom of the trash bag. The garbage juice. The garbage shop.
Vic00:25:05Garbage juice. You know, they used to do in the bar, they would take the bar rag and then just squeeze it out into a shot. And that was a shot. No, but it sounds delicious. I would have picked that one. I think that's great. Up right up there with Nutrageous. But no, so I have to get out of here earlier today because Our Street does the Halloween parade and block party.
JVL00:25:27Not tonight. They're not going to.
Vic00:25:28Well, this is the thing. So they think the storm is coming at nine. We usually have to as a potluck and we used to make chili, but we don't have time to make the chili. I don't have time to make the chili. So I I'm just going to Popeye's and getting like a giant box. Now, my hope is that the storm hits early and we all have to shelter in place. Then I'll have my gigantic box of Popeye's for myself tonight and they don't have to share it. That's mine. That sounds healthy. That sounds healthy. That would be my can get it extra crispy. That would be my candy draft, by the way. Number three chicken box box of Popeye's spicy thigh.
Sonny00:26:03Yeah. Well, you know, if you if you were thinking outside the box, if you were putting some thought and some strategy into your draft like I was like, I always do in these drafts and that's why I always win them. That's why I've won every draft that we've ever done. And we stopped doing them. We stopped doing them because I because I was wrong because I win and I win and I do nothing but win and you got sick of me winning. You got tired of the winning. You got tired of the winning and I I'm a winner. You're losers. You're both losers.
JVL00:26:29The right way. He plays the game. I play the game the right way.
Sonny00:26:31I'm the Mike Krzyzewski of this this this podcast. OK, thank you. JVL.
JVL00:26:37Is it wrong that I am secretly hoping the storm hits early so we don't have to. I know. I know. You know, it's going to happen.
Guest00:26:43No, it's not wrong.
Vic00:26:44Because these years are precious.
JVL00:26:45I know, but it's such a way trick or treat is such a chore.
Vic00:26:49It's because the world I'm just too tired to try. And I got to bring it. Plus, plus, you know, do it tonight. I need to go to bed. Plus, Kate is in charge of that block. She had to get the permits. We got to get those those giant orange. Cone, not the cones, but what do you call the big ones, the big plastic, gigantic things. I got to put them up on Washington Boulevard, the bigger cones. And then I got to carry the table down the street. So, you know, that's my hope. But of course, it's not going to happen. They're going to.
Sonny00:27:11Aren't you getting the Dwyers out to do all that? Yeah, I know. They are coming, by the way. So my father-in-law, your father-in-law will carry all the heavy stuff. You know, he could stack them over the shoulder. You got to watch the kids. You got to watch the kids.
Vic00:27:22I got to watch the kids. You know, be safe. Watch the house.
Sonny00:27:24You can have Captain Bill.
Vic00:27:26Keep that haze. I know. Oh, I was like, man, crazy game. And he's like, this is like the worst night ever because he, of course, he's, you know, down in Arlington. Oh. And he said it was like a combination of everything. It was like Halloween parties over the weekend. Cool. Plus World Series. Plus it was just.
Sonny00:27:43I would like to actually see the DUI stats. Yeah. No. Last weekend. Just to just to get a. People go crazy. I don't know. The DUI stats slash the Uber stats. Like what? What were the Uber surcharges like on that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The surge. Surge. Surging. Surging. Surging.
Vic00:28:00My prediction, JVL, is whether whether or not your kids, our kids are all your kids. Sonny, everyone's going to trick or treat. If it's wind, rain, tornado, they're going to go and it's going to be a mess. And speaking of messes, how about that box office mojo site? What happened there?
JVL00:28:18What happened? I went to check the numbers and I was so confused. I know people may not want to hear us complain about the redesign of this site. This is going to be. But this is important to us. This is important. This is important to us.
Sonny00:28:28I don't know how to read it. We spent the first 25 minutes on baseball. Now we're going to spend 10 minutes complaining about a box office data site. This is what you get.
JVL00:28:35This is a very special episode.
Sonny00:28:37We've already got your download.
Vic00:28:38All you people who enjoyed Mary Catherine Ham last week, this is the exact opposite.
Sonny00:28:43Sorry about that. Do you like that episode, Sonny? I still haven't listened to it. I've been busy. Am I the only one who listens to the show when I'm not on it?
Vic00:28:51I sometimes do, but I haven't listened to the ones I haven't.
Sonny00:28:53I listen to it sometimes. I frankly, you know, podcasts. I feel the same way. I do. So, Vic, you went to Box Office Mojo, and you're surprised because you don't follow this stuff obsessively.
Vic00:29:06No, no, I don't, but I didn't. Suddenly, the colors, it's just, just give me the numbers. And instead, it was something entirely new.
JVL00:29:14Yeah.
Vic00:29:15Whose idea was that?
JVL00:29:16All right, so, Sonny, do you want to explain to people? Why don't you explain? Why don't you explain what happened? Okay, so many years ago, this thing called the Internet Movie Database came out, and it was kind of cool. This was in the infancy. It was in the infancy of the Internet, and people thought, hey, maybe this is a business. It'll be like Wikipedia for movies. Although, this was before Wikipedia was big.
Vic00:29:34It was like one of the two sites I would go to was the Internet Movie Database and WhiteHouse.com.
Sonny00:29:38And people need to remember that IMDb is still mostly a user-generated site. Correct. It is. People and their agents, they go to it, and they upload people's appearances, whatever. This is why whenever you go to a big budget movie and you start scrolling through it, when you get to the bottom, you get to, There are a lot of uncredited roles, and that's because somebody or their agents started putting in extras in the movie.
JVL00:30:05And then, I don't know, a decade ago or so, Amazon bought it. And Amazon purchased IMDb, and the idea behind this was that Amazon was going to sell movies through, and DVDs, because it was pre-streaming, before IMDb. When you went to the site. So, you go to look up Godzilla, the 2010 Godzilla, on IMDb, and Amazon was going to put a little, just look, buy it. Affiliate link. Right, affiliate link, just buy it right here.
Sonny00:30:40It was essentially a giant affiliate farm.
JVL00:30:42And then IMDb decided to give out a pro version, basically for people in the industry, and they were going to make a subscription product that allowed you to get in touch with people's agents, and it was going to be like the LinkedIn for Hollywood.
Sonny00:31:00It is marginally useful. I will put it that way. As somebody who, I remember when I was at the Washington Times, I had an IMDb Pro subscription because every once in a while I would need to get in touch with somebody directly, not through the studios. And the most success I ever had with that was with John Milius. John Milius. So, I was working on a piece about the Red Dawn reboot, and I was like, I want to talk to John Milius about that. So, I called. I called his, like, agent. I called his appearance agent or something, and I didn't really expect to hear back. And then, like, 30 minutes later, I got a phone call. It was like, hey, this is John Milius' agent. Do you want to, he's happy to talk to you. Can we do it tomorrow?
JVL00:31:39I was like, yes, that is.
Sonny00:31:40But mostly, it is not of, the phone numbers in there are often out of date and not the highest of quality.
JVL00:31:49So, my sense, and you are closer to Hollywood now than I am, but my sense is that in Hollywood, if somebody is. If somebody is willing to take your call, it basically presumes that you already have their number. And if you have to go to a subscription website to get a contact for them, then they're just not going to talk to you. Right? It is, whatever.
Sonny00:32:11Well, this is why it's useful when you want to get in touch with agents. Right. More than, I mean, like, they don't have, they don't have, like, Martin Scorsese's phone number on there.
JVL00:32:19It's like, they have the William Morris agency or whatever. But even the people William Morris, right, are not going to be super interested in taking your call. Anyway, the point is, then at some point, the IMDB subcompany of the Amazon purchased the site Box Office Mojo, which was a kind of labor of love. This is, again, people forget that back before everything consolidated, the Internet was full of things like this. Like, these tiny little businesses that were websites that were putting out some sort of marginal utility. And that's what Box Office Mojo was. It was a marginal utility for a subset of people like you, Sonny. Mm-hmm. Who care about Box Office. And you, J.D.O. And, right. But they're not, you know, they're not millions of us. There are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of us. And they're just making it work through ad dollars. But then as Internet advertising has been in the process of drying up over the last decade, because, see, the problem is ad prices are based on supply and demand. And the longer the Internet exists, the greater supply of real estate there is on it. Because we just keep making more of it. This is why.
Sonny00:33:26Because the Internet is an infrastructure. An infinite mall. Right. That needs to be filled at all times.
JVL00:33:31So anyway, and IMDB over the last week, ten days, finally digested BoxOffice Mojo and has rendered the website unusable.
Sonny00:33:42It is one of the great tragedies of our time.
JVL00:33:45It's the worst. I can't believe that somebody did this.
Sonny00:33:47People point to Syria, people point to, you know, the Ukraine. And I'm just like, none of that matters now because BoxOffice Mojo is basically dead.
JVL00:33:55So 15 years ago, this would have happened. This would happen. People with pretty good websites would redesign them and do a terrible job at it. That's not the way it works anymore. Like now, most redesigns are at least marginal upgrades and occasionally tremendous upgrades. This is like somebody took a crap and just smeared it all over your screen.
Sonny00:34:16There are weird things about it that just do nothing but make it less useful to people. I mean, the problem with this redesign is. That it is designed to make the website less useful to make people get the IMDb Pro subscription. So it is a real pain. Here's the simple truth of the matter. I would be willing to pay for a subscription to Box Office Mojo that just kept it the way it was. 100%. I would pay $5 a month for that happily. I'd pay $10 a month for that. I frankly don't know how much I would pay for that. I don't want to think about how much I would pay. Would you pay $1,500 lifetime? Possibly. For a lifetime? But they do weird things that just make it less usable and less easy to go through. For instance, Box Office Mojo used to have a release schedule calendar that would have not just the release dates and the studios and genres and all that. But it would also have theater counts. Yep. So now the release dates just say wide. Or IMAX wide. Or nothing. Nothing. Like it is not terribly useful. Now the individual charts themselves still have the Theater Counts because they do the per-screen breakdowns. But there's all sorts of stuff. Like for instance, just as another for instance, yesterday, just yesterday, I was looking up, speaking of Martin Scorsese, I was looking up Martin Scorsese's Lifetime Box Office Stats. And I click on it on Box Office Mojo. I Google it because this is how I get to everything. I just Google Martin Scorsese Box Office Mojo, right? And I click on it and I get a little landing page that says this is now on IMDb Pro. And I'm like, crap. But I have an IMDb Pro subscription already. Part of my job. So I click on it and I go to the page and it doesn't have a breakdown by his films. It has a breakdown by like territories. I'm just like, what is, I don't understand. I just want to know the movies that he, I want to know the box office figures for the movies he has directed. That's all I want. I want a very simple, and I like poked around for about 90 seconds. I couldn't find it. I just stopped. I was like, I give up. I give up with this. I went to The Numbers, which is the other like kind of box office mojo competitor. And that site is not as useful as the old box office mojo, but at least it had what I was looking for. So I am, I'm, I'm really pretty distraught about this. This is, I, I, I go to box, I go to box. This is not, this is dead serious. I go to box office mojo for fun. I poke around and look at things. I will literally go there like five or six times a day just to be like, oh, I wonder what that was. I wonder what that was. Not anymore. How many theaters this was on. Not anymore.
JVL00:37:04In your community, is this a thing people have noticed? I mean, it is.
Sonny00:37:10I would, I mean, I would say my community is still film Twitter. It's still like critics and oh yeah, everybody's like, this is terrible. And so is box office mojo hearing about this? No, but I don't think anybody cares. Why would anybody at IMDb or box office mojo care about this?
JVL00:37:24Well, IMDb, they would not, but at box office. Mojo, they might, because again, they are not made for 50 million people. They're made for a small subset of people like you. Yeah. I don't know. Can't you use your Twitter powers for good here? No. Like the time. Twitter can only be used for evil. No. Like the time you got Arlington to fix a sinkhole. That's true. The pothole. The pothole of Roslyn. Here's my challenge to you. Craft a tweet so deadly that you force them to revert to the old box office mojo. You should do that.
Vic00:37:56Challenge accepted.
Sonny00:37:58No. Challenge considered.
Vic00:38:00I'm just glad that I only go there once a week to find out that over the weekend, Maleficent, Mistress of Evil, remained at the top of the box office with $19.4 million, had just edged out the Joker with $19.3 million. And in third place was the Addams Family with $12 million. It's funny because I thought Raul Julia had died. But I guess they sort of CGI'd him in like Princess. Grand Moff Tarkin. Grand Moff Tarkin. Okay. I was going to say box office thoughts, but I mean, we talked about box office mojo. Unless you have thoughts about Joker and its longevity.
Sonny00:38:36Oh, I mean, Joker's now the highest grossing R-rated film of all time worldwide, which is interesting. It's a bunch of incels. Bunch of incels.
Vic00:38:44And the rioting and the violence.
Sonny00:38:45Oh, so much rioting and violence.
Vic00:38:47But because there was nothing really good or new at the box office, unlike this coming up weekend.
Sonny00:38:53We haven't talked about Zombieland yet. Do we want to talk about that? Oh, wait. Sorry. Sorry. We decided to pick something from Netflix called Dolomite Is My Name. And now we get to the movie portion of the show, which is going to be about five minutes.
Vic00:39:09Yeah, you know what? We do. The show's almost over. Starring Eddie Murphy. Do you want to do a big boy mini review or something, Sonny? Something short?
Sonny00:39:15Sure. Did you guys even actually watch it?
Vic00:39:18I did, and it was long.
Sonny00:39:19It was two hours.
JVL00:39:21Like I said, it was long. I sat in my car in the garage this morning. And watched it? And watched. It was almost two hours. It was a full two hours. I can't believe I bothered. I should have just skipped it and then just made it up and pretended to watch it. Oh, you've never done that before.
Sonny00:39:35I'm glad we all put a lot of effort into this today. No, the point is that we did. We did.
Vic00:39:40The point is I sat there. I'm like, you know what?
JVL00:39:43So you guys didn't like it.
Sonny00:39:44Oh, no, no, no, no. Go ahead. So Dolomite Is My Name is Eddie Murphy's big return to prestige comedy, more or less. It's him. He is playing Rudy Ray Moore, who was a... a key figure in the blaxploitation cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. His Dolomite character was something of a parody. And the question is how much of it is intentional, how much of it is unintentional, blah, blah, blah. This movie is essentially a blaxploitation version of The Disaster Artist. Do you remember The Disaster Artist? Yes, yes, I thought that. The movie starring James Franco about the making of The Room, which was kind of a notorious vanity project. That spiraled out of control and became a viral sensation. Well, Dolomite was a viral sensation before viral sensations were a thing. And it is a kind of underdog, you know, good guy, made good, you know, achieves his dreams, blah, blah, blah story. I liked it a lot. I enjoyed all of the performances. I thought they were all, you know, it is a feel-good movie. It's a feel-good comedy about. A bunch of people who are trying to make their dreams happen. And I really, I really, there are a couple of lines near the middle where they're talking about, you know, we don't see movies for people like us. We don't, you know, they don't make movies about people like us. We're doing this. We're building it. We're putting it together. We're doing it ourselves.
JVL00:41:14It's like when they go to the Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau movie.
Sonny00:41:17It's, yeah, yeah. When they go see the front page. Yeah. And they're like, what is this nonsense on the screen?
JVL00:41:22That shot is fantastic because they are in the movie theater. And so you have the actual, the front page on the screen, which is a lesser Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon thing. And the jokes are terrible. The jokes are terrible. And the rest of the audience is like chuckling politely in a way that only because they're conditioned to laugh at this stuff. And the four or five African-American characters sit there and they look at each other and like, what is this? What are these white people laughing at? Yeah.
Vic00:41:50Did you notice, did you notice, by the way, on the marquee, it's Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon.
Sonny00:41:56Susan Sarandon's in one of the shots on the screen. She is. So the, would she have been on the marquee at that point?
Vic00:42:03I feel like that was really vital for her. Or am I thinking it was the poster that I saw? Yeah, maybe.
JVL00:42:07I saw it was on the marquee. Okay.
Sonny00:42:09So anyway, I, I, look, I like this movie a lot. It is, it is slight. It is a, it is a pretty standard biopic. It is a pretty standard, you know, underdog makes good, beats the world, shocks the world, shows everybody that, you know. But it's a million times. It's better than Bohemian Rhapsody. It's, it's, you know, I, I, I, I had a very good time. I'm very glad to see Eddie Murphy back and doing, you know, kind of. Well, I feel that way about it. Kind of, yeah. I find it very likable. Eddie Murphy is fantastic in this. You know, I, it, it, it works for me. I'm, I'm a little surprised you guys are so down on it.
Vic00:42:47This is very unusual. Sometimes, it's usually the only way. I'm not down on it at all.
Sonny00:42:50I like it all the time.
Vic00:42:50You, you, you, oh, okay.
JVL00:42:52No, I was just, just. I know. We don't have a ton to say about it. I, I like that. Victorino. I was going to say, you know. It had action.
Vic00:42:59I had, it had.
JVL00:43:00Nudity. Y'all.
Vic00:43:02That was, that's the bonus. That's, that adds to the great. Score, go, go through the quadrants. I, I, I still, okay, yes. Time, two hours, a little bit long. Okay, plot, very easy to understand. Wonderful. Great action, funny action. And then there was, yeah, the bonus of.
Sonny00:43:18The great Wesley Snipes, like, performances.
?00:43:20Wesley Snipes.
Sonny00:43:20Which is interesting. But you know what? So. Mincing director type, you know.
Vic00:43:24Because it, it's so weird. Because you are conditioned to accept Wesley Snipes as Mr. Tough Guy, Action Guy, even the last time I had seen him was probably in The Fugitive Part Two, and he is more or less this sort of. Well, so, so this is the genius.
JVL00:43:39So they, they. No, no, but it's, it's not what you think, right? So. Yeah. They introduced the Wesley Snipes character, and he is a, a black actor in the, I guess we're in the 1970s. Yeah. Yeah. And they see him in a strip club, and he's sitting, talking with this woman, and they recognize him as an actor. So they go over to talk to him, says Eddie Murphy and his crew, we're trying to put together this piratical, we're going to make our own movie, because nobody else will make it, we're going to do it. And they go over to him, and he starts going on this, like, you don't just come talk to me, like, I have an agent, I have, I have a talent booker, like, I'm, I'm a legitimate professional, and, you know, I am an actor. You go to IMDB Pro, and you look up my agent, and then you call me. He's like, I, I, I just worked with Roman Polanski, for God's sakes. Yeah, yeah. And they look at him, and. And Rudy Ray says to him, I'll let you direct. And that was, yeah. And all of a sudden, he's like, okay. Yeah. Which is such a great gag. Because, of course. On three different levels, because that's what all actors want to do.
Vic00:44:36Right, and, and, and, of course, because he's bragging that he had been directed by Roman Polanski, and they're like, oh, yeah, you were the elevator guy.
Sonny00:44:42The elevator operator. Diego, the elevator guy.
Vic00:44:45And then once he starts directing, he becomes frou-frou art guy. Totally. His character shifts. His character shifts.
JVL00:44:50And he starts, like, saying things with French accent. I thought the Wesley Snipes bit. Great. It's fascinating. He's just killed.
Vic00:44:57I'm glad that he's not in trouble for anything. Because I thought he was. And he had fled the country. I thought he had fled the country. But, you know, it's great because you could actually still see clips and possibly even the movie, even though it wouldn't be right to see the whole movie on the internet, obviously, because, you know, these, you know, royalties and trademark. I'm sure somebody will take it down. But it's out there, so you can catch it. But my only advice is to make sure you're using a secure network, JVL.
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Vic00:46:53Thank you JVL to answer your question. B plus. I gave Dolomite a B plus.
JVL00:46:59Yeah, I know that's a C it is.
Vic00:47:00You know why I thought it dragged in the middle. I liked, I thought it had a strong start about this. The comedy is your level. I thought it had a strong start and it had, it had a good aim, but I just felt like the middle was like, okay, we could wrap it. We could just make this tighter. We can make this shorter.
Sonny00:47:13So, you know, you didn't care about them making the actual movie. Cause that's, it went on forever, but if they had made it shorter by trimming the
JVL00:47:20nudity, that's not the part you would trim. Uh, but I know I, I, I always say, I thought it had a kind of a boogie nights feel to it too. I'm so glad you said that. Yeah. You thought so? I thought about that.
Vic00:47:34Eddie Murphy's boogie nights or something, you know what I mean? And, and, and, and, and, and, and there's a weird personal connection for, I'm sure Eddie Murphy doing this and, and, and multiple reasons why he does it. I'm also, I appreciate, uh, that he's able to embrace his doughy self as he's described.
JVL00:47:48Do you know what I appreciate? And he's old. I appreciate that Eddie Murphy can go and make a prestige. He kind of moved me without turning into Tom Hanks. No knock on Tom Hanks. The awareness of the self-importance. There's no, I mean, this is, I think of a good movie and, and like a real movie, which is telling, it's a biopic, but it's also funny. It sort of works on a bunch of different levels. Kind of strangely sweet. Nothing. Yeah, it is sweet, but nothing about it is pretentious. Nothing about it is like, I'm going to show the world that I am a serious actor.
Sonny00:48:22Yeah, no, it's totally, it is totally, uh, Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy playing to Eddie Murphy's strength.
JVL00:48:27Yeah, I, I, I admire that a great deal, actually.
Sonny00:48:31Do we, do we think that this movie has award season potential? Is this, is this going to, uh, garner some nods for the actors?
Vic00:48:39I hope it does. And I hope it does because I like Eddie Murphy.
JVL00:48:42I mean, just as a, but why is it on Netflix? Why wasn't this released?
Sonny00:48:47I feel, I mean, it did get, it got it. It got a standard Netflix, like 20 screen, three, three weekend release.
Vic00:48:54So it's a quality. It qualifies, is what you're saying.
Sonny00:48:56Yeah. No, it does.
JVL00:48:57But why, why was this not a, like a real movie?
Sonny00:49:00I don't know. I don't know. I feel like this is the sort of thing that you could, who knows how much it costs to make.
JVL00:49:08It didn't look very expensive.
Sonny00:49:09It didn't look very, I don't know, man. I don't know. This, this, this world that we live in now is so weird. It's very strange, isn't it? It's so weird. I don't understand any of it. I, I, you know, I, I, I have, I have so many thoughts about what Netflix is up to. And there's a, there's a big Hollywood reporter round table with a bunch of executives. That maybe we could talk about next week. But like one of the things they talk about is making, making the, the Irishman. And just, you know, the guy from the Hollywood report is like, are you guys sad that, you know, Netflix is the only one who could make $150 million Martin Scorsese gangster movie? And they're like, no, we're not sad. We're glad it exists, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, well, yeah, but I, at the same time, like, yes. Also, like I, the fact that none of you people could make this movie. Well, totally reasonably because they need to show profits and losses and Netflix does not. $150 million Martin Scorsese movie, you know, that you, that movie has to grow $500 million worldwide. And he's never had, this is why I was looking up Scorsese. Because he's never had a movie that has crossed $400 million worldwide. And this is not the sort of movie that's going to cross $400 million worldwide. It's, you know.
Vic00:50:18His biggest movie was The Departed?
Sonny00:50:20No, well, domestic it was The Departed and worldwide it is Wolf of Wall Street. Which did almost $400 million at $380 million or something like that.
JVL00:50:29But the point is fewer people will see it on Netflix than would have seen it in the theater.
Sonny00:50:33I don't think that's true.
JVL00:50:35I don't know that that's true. I really don't know that that's true. Here's what I will say. When Netflix releases their occasional glimpse into the data, which is very occasional. It is always things like an unprecedented number of people watched the first seven minutes of. X in making it the most successful Netflix thing ever, if more people, if 15 million people watched a Netflix movie from front to back, Netflix would be all over the trades shouting it, because that's that's what it takes to to make a to make a movie that grosses one hundred fifty million dollars domestically. That has to mean that like 15 million human beings. Watched it from front to back and Netflix never says that. And the only reason I can think of, based upon the other stuff they do brag about, is that it does not happen on their platform.
Sonny00:51:35The the Netflix viewership number experience is a total black box. And I wish everyone in Hollywood would stop reporting on it, period. I wish I wish people would just stop talking about what their numbers are because their numbers are all nonsense. It's usually something like what they've done now, what they've moved to now is like X million number of people watched. At least 70 percent of this thing, which is I don't know what that means. What does that what does that even mean that that's a nonsense figure? Like why? Why 70 percent? Why? You know, why don't we just know the full, you know, number?
JVL00:52:07You know what? I actually have a theory about that, which is so a bunch of stuff autoplay is on Netflix where people, you know, like it's just if you don't make a decision within three seconds, it just starts the movie. My guess is that they are averaging minutes by users. They're taking. So if 10 people watch 15 seconds of it, but then one person watches all 120 minutes of it, they then average out all of that. And that's what gets them to the number of people who watched 70 percent. They just look at the how many people then does it take to get you to.
Vic00:52:44And by the way, that's one of my huge pet peeves is you can't get to the enjoy. You can't watch end credits anymore automatically because, you know, midway through the credits in five. Four. And then all of a sudden it's another thing and sometimes it's not even an episode. It's a whole other movie now, because if you like this, you're going to like this. And anyway, you're on to something that is my theory about the thing.
JVL00:53:06But just I mean, I think it's undeniably true that if you release a movie in theaters, more people see it. And it is paradoxical because you would think, well, if it's essentially free, the marginal cost is zero to watch a movie on Netflix. We already have a subscription and you don't have to leave your house. But on the other hand, it just seems to me to be true that more people will see a film if it is in the theaters than see it when it's on Netflix. All of this is an answer to your question about do I think it has award season potential? And I think probably not. But had it been in theaters, I think it might have.
Vic00:53:39Yeah. I, by the way, I made a little ranking of Eddie Murphy movies. Oh, a ranking. A top five, a top five, a top five. Go for it. Number five is supposed to be 48 hours, right? Everybody loves 48 hours. I barely remember. 48 hours. Definitely not 48 hours, too. Another 48 hours. Just 48 hours. And so I crossed it out and I wrote out a personal favorite, which is The Golden Child.
JVL00:54:02You remember that? You love The Golden Child. I love that.
Vic00:54:04It was, well, it was like a Buddha, a little Buddha kid. And it took place in the 80s. And of course, you know, I watch in the theater. And the woman in that movie, she was very attractive. OK. And I believe I'm ready for this. It's so many. It hits so many of the quadrants. How long was it? Was it more than two hours? Oh, for sure. And in fact, I think the villain, I could be wrong about this, but I think the villain might have been the great Charles Dance, you know, Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones. I could be wrong. OK. Number four, Beverly Hills Cop 2. Sorry. Pause. Yeah. Charles Dance. Yes. Thank you. Beverly Hills Cop 2 starring, besides Eddie Murphy, Brigitte Nielsen. She's a great villain and directed by Tony Scott. And that's a solid movie. And of course, Bob Seger's Shakedown. Number three, Beverly Hills Cop. I was just discussing with JVL before you arrived. Sonny, the bizarre video, the Glenn Frey's heat is on. Why is there a guy looking over the editing, the film and splicing and then they go into the movie? It's so ridiculous, but it's very 80s. Lots of sacks. Sacks. Number two, Coming to America. I love coming. This is a very close one and two. I love Coming to America. I just watched it again with Kate and my son. You forget, by the way, how much profanity you let in that Michael watch coming to America. There are a lot of nudity. No, there's one bit of nudity and I forwarded it and that's where the woman comes out of the pool and she says his royal majesty's penis is clean or something like that.
JVL00:55:35Pretty funny stuff. OK, but it's a great movie.
Vic00:55:40And John Amos is just I love John Amos is McDowell's is fantastic. OK. Oh, the best part of Coming to America. Eric LaSalle breaking the fourth wall. You know, it's raining. He's soaking wet. And the younger the younger sister says here quick. Take off these clothes. You know, these these clothes. You're soaking wet. And he looks up at the camera and it's fantastic. I liked him in that. OK. And number one was Trading Places, which I still think is such a nice little, you know, insight into Philadelphia at that time, including Philadelphia High Society and these clubs. I mean, that's not my world. I'm not a Philly guy, but I found it fascinating. And it has a lot of great lines, including when Eddie Murphy is in the hot tub and the bubbles and he's singing. And Don Amici and Ralph Bellamy are are outside and they and they say, what's he doing? What's going on there? And then the butler says, oh, he's singing. And Ralph Bellamy, without missing a beat, says there are very musical people, aren't they? Funny stuff. I love it. Great movie. OK. Did you do we have enough time? No, we don't have enough time. Star Wars. Do you want to talk about what's happening?
Sonny00:56:50We can talk about it next week. We'll push a bunch of stuff up for next week. OK, good. Sorry. We're we're already hitting the end. We are. We got 15 minutes of talk about Dolomite in somehow.
Vic00:56:58Yeah, I know we did. We got more out of what we do, but I barely have enough time. And I also have to pick up my Popeyes the next time I'm not picking up the food. I'm just going to go to DoorDash. That's right. DoorDash connects you to your favorite restaurants in your city. Ordering is easy. Open the DoorDash app. Choose what you want to eat and your food will be delivered to you wherever you are. Not only is your favorite pizza joint already on DoorDash, but there are over three hundred forty thousand restaurants, in three thousand three hundred cities. So you might find a new favorite too. With door-to-door delivery in all 50 states and Canada, order from your local go-to's or choose from your favorite national restaurants like Chipotle, Wendy's, Chick-fil-A and the Cheesecake Factory. Don't worry about dinner. Let dinner come to you with DoorDash. Right now, our listeners can get five dollars off their first order of fifteen dollars or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter promo code SubBeacon. That's five dollars off your first order. When you download the DoorDash app from the App Store and enter promo code SubBeacon, don't forget that's promo code SubBeacon for five dollars off your first order from DoorDash. Corrections, additions, shoutouts. I will say a great little shoutout for me and for Sonny, SubBeacon listener Ian Brody, who took us to lunch this past week. He came all the way from Canada giving a big talk at SAIS. He has a book out, "The Limits of the Power of the Prime Minister". I am botching that title, but please check it out on Amazon. Anyway, great to see him. Okay, that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us @SonnyBunch, @VictorinoMatus. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Type in SubBeacon on our podcasts. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny00:58:54Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.
JVL00:58:55Anything? Do we have anything? I got JVL. You must have something. I'm barely awake. Wow. I'm so, so tired. Oh, uh, okay.
Vic00:59:05No, I was gonna say, for our next episode, Terminator. Is that it? It's coming out.
JVL00:59:12I have a friend who just saw it last week and said that he legit thought that it functioned as the best
Vic00:59:19sequel to Judgment Day. I know I was, I had a lot of strong doubts and suspicions. And I thought the fix was in and they were trying to rig it. I think our friend Brian Fodden was saying about the, the teaser for all the fanboys so that they could drive up the ratings.
JVL00:59:33My friend is 100% a fanboy who went to a...
Vic00:59:35Okay. But then I read the Variety Review.
JVL00:59:38Well, you can't trust them anymore. Sonny, but you've seen it already? I've not. I actually am going to see it tonight. People seem to like it. Yeah. What, I mean, do we have anything else? Any other thoughts?
Vic00:59:50No, no, I was just...
Sonny00:59:52We got a lot of stuff to talk about next week. Let's tease. Next week. Next week, we're going to talk about that Conde Nast story in New York Magazine. Everyone's going to be real excited for it. Oh, yeah. A deep dive into the world of fancy magazines.
Vic01:00:02We're going to talk about... We should have worked at... We didn't because we were born at the wrong time.
Sonny01:00:06We're going to talk about Star Wars, right? We're going to talk about... Benioff and Weiss getting kicked out. Game of Thrones duo out. And then we'll talk about Terminator. It'll be great. Great show. If you sat through this one, if you slogged your way through this one...
Vic01:00:24You'll really love that one. The box office mojo, which we spent about two hours on. Ben, you'll be fine.
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